On a whim on the first Saturday of July, 2016, I left my house in a hurry to rush to a Krav Maga gym in Oakland. I took the class without knowing much about it other than that it’s a self-defense system. That 1 hour class worked me out hard core and it took a week to recover. I went again the next week and the next and the next. Eventually, I started going on Wednesday’s too. At this point, it was only about 2-3 days of recovery time needed.

As the months went on, I decided to up my cardio and started taking a combat cardio class along with the krav class on the weekend as well as my middle of the week classes. Now, seven months in and frequently taking three classes in a row multiple days a week, I’m looking towards next Saturday, 1/28/17. I will be taking my P1 test. It’s a five hour test of endurance and the moves learned to graduate to the next level. My instructor on Monday said it was the hardest thing he’s done other than marinecore bootcamp. I’m super excited and a little nervous. I want to succeed and know that the muscle memory is in place to do the techniques.

Most of the time, my bumps and bruises are fairly minor, but last nights classes resulted in the most injuries. I was kicked pretty hard and now have a bump and bruise on my right forearm. And then, while escaping from a strong headlock, my ear was quickly and painfully bent in a bad way while clawing my way out of it. Hopefully these things heal up in time for class tomorrow and hopefully I’ll have a ton of fun taking the test on Saturday!

I bought a really nice bottle of wine for Sat night, which will be enjoyed whether I pass or not.

Other news:

I went to Europe again in November to speak at DeepSec 2016 in Vienna. The trip was two weeks. Just to summarize:

Several days in Berlin, went to Tresor, saw where David Bowie lived, visited Hansa Recording Studio, walked all over and took the train. Did a Krav Maga class. Worked from my airbnb.

Night train to Vienna: Conference, then accepted to speak at BSides Vienna.

Train to Budapest: Went to four different sauna places. One was a dance party at night.

Night train back to Berlin, then a day in Berlin. I was ready to come home though at this point.

Flight to Copenhaagen, stay at an airport hotel, flight to London next morning and flight home.

It was nice and I love it in Berlin and Budapest. I would like to really see Copenhaagen and would love to go back and stay for a long time, but in the summer. For now, it’s nice to stay put. There’s a trip to Vegas soon and then a speaking thing in Orlando. I’m not excited to go to Orlando, but it’ll probably become exciting when closer.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2017 at 12:40 am
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